Connectionists: INCF Short Course on Neuroinformatics, Neurogenomics and Brain Disease, September 2013

[Juyang Weng]

Some researchers argued that neuroscience is rich in data and poor in 
theory.
This seems to be a good reason for this situation:
If one knew the brain theory, he would have known that analyzing the 
brain data
(e.g., Connectome) has no hope to get the brain theory, since the data like
Connectome miss so much, such as synaptic weights (conductances), the
distribution of neurotransmitters, and most important of all, the 
brain's external environment
at all the moments ...

Analyzing the brain data without the guidance of a brain-scale theory is 
like the following:
A person who does not understand how a modern computer works (i.e., 
theory) got the wiring diagram
of a modern computer (Connectome) and all snapshots of voltages at all 
the spots of the wires (high definition
fMRI movie).  Then he said "now we have data, and we need to analyze it."

-John

On 3/12/13 8:51 AM, Alexander Heimel wrote:
> To understand the brain and its disorders, we needed to get data.
> Now we have data, and we need to analyze it.
>
> INCF Short Course on Neuroinformatics, Neurogenomics and Brain DIsease
> https://sites.google.com/site/neuroinformaticsjamboree/
> 14-20 September 2013, Fraueninsel (Bavaria), Germany
>
> OPEN FOR APPLICATIONS until April 30th, 2013
>
> Program
> In this exciting five-day course at an idyllic European location, we
> will discuss and demonstrate many neuroinformatics tools and public
> data resources in the context of neurogenomics and brain diseases. The
> mornings and evenings are filled with lectures on areas of
> neuroscience in which large datasets are becoming available, such as
> the synaptic complex and the proteome, synaptic plasticity,
> impulsivity, mRNAs, neuro-ontology, neurogenomics, and neurogenesis.
> In the afternoons, students and lecturers together will attempt to
> apply the new tools and datasets to answer specific research
> questions. Our aim is to have jointly written draft papers for each of
> the questions by the end of the course.
>
> Target audience
> All neuroscientists with an interest in neuroinformatics,
> neurogenomics or brain disease. Graduate students and postdocs are
> welcome, but also more advanced researchers eager to learn how to
> exploit the potential of neuroinformatics tools and publicly available
> datasets in answering their research questions. We aim for about 40
> participants.
>
> Lodging
> Lodging, food and coffee will be provided. The course fee is 100 euros
> only, thanks to generous gifts of our sponsors. We hope to make travel
> stipends available by application for a selected number of students.
>
> Organizers: Alexander Heimel, Rupert Overall and Rob Williams.
> More info or applications: neuroinformatics.jamboree at gmail.com

-- 
--
Juyang (John) Weng, Professor
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
MSU Cognitive Science Program and MSU Neuroscience Program
3115 Engineering Building
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824 USA
Tel: 517-353-4388
Fax: 517-432-1061
Email: weng at cse.msu.edu
URL: http://www.cse.msu.edu/~weng/
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